Kiss-ins show we have a long way to go

A few years ago, OUT (IU's Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender People's Union) used to sponsor kiss-ins on campus once a year. They were usually in front of Ballantine Hall at high noon, not far from the outdoor evangelists. Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals would pair off appropriately and kiss each other, encouraged by cheers and chants from supporters of all sexual orientations. \nIt was controversial. And, as usual, the point got missed, including at times by the organizers. So here's the point:\nThere are countries where heterosexual kissing can't be shown in movies or on TV, where deep kissing is considered dirty -- but the United States of America isn't one of them. In the United States, movie and TV audiences apparently think nothing of watching a man and a woman lock lips in extreme close-up and suck face for a long, long time. This is known as a "love scene."\nPassing the big screen TV in the Commons in the Indiana Memorial Union, I see soap opera characters going at it. Although not everyone might be watching the slurping with utter rapture, I never notice anyone complaining loudly that this was gross and disgusting. Nor, when I see a heterosexual movie in the theater, and the hero and heroine are making the beast with two tongues, does anyone squirm or groan or yell "SICK!" (Not even me: I'm a very tolerant guy.)\nAh, but let two men kiss on the screen, even for a moment, and there will be squirming and loud expressions of disgust, usually from males. (This is less true in relatively liberal viewings such as a Ryder film, but I will never forget a Ryder audience that froze like a deer in headlights on seeing River Phoenix confess his love and climb into Keanu Reeves' sleeping bag in "My Own Private Idaho.") Homophobes love to dwell on the "dirtiness, sickness and unnaturalness" of anal sex when trying to explain why they object to homosexuality, but kissing or even hand-holding between males enrages such people just as much.\nThis has a lot to do with why Hollywood approaches projects involving gay men with such fear and trembling. A recent case in point: The movie "54" was about the famous New York City disco that, in real life, was very popular among gay men, and numerous gay men were prominently involved in its history. As originally filmed, "54" was more faithful to this aspect of history. But advance audiences were so infuriated by the boy-on-boy love scenes that the movie was re-edited to eliminate the offending material. It still didn't do all that well, but the studios figured it probably would have done much worse if they hadn't changed it.\nSo … what has this to do with kiss-ins? I think the kiss-ins were fabulously successful and effective. For years after the last one took place, straight people would ask me what I thought about the kiss-ins, and didn't I agree that they "hurt the cause" by offending so many people? After all, they argued, you don't see heterosexuals acting like that in public. Even some gay people (who clearly didn't get out much) would agree, getting pretty overwrought about the distastefulness of public displays of affection, whether heterosexual or homosexual.\nAfter I stopped laughing at the idea that heterosexuals never kiss passionately in public, I would tell my interlocutors that I thought the kiss-ins were a great idea, since homophobes were still fretting about them years later. A kiss-in doesn't make "the cause" look bad -- it's the people who are offended who look bad. Kiss-ins reveal just how much homophobia still simmers beneath the surface of polite acceptance of "diversity" and "equality," and how such polite acceptance of "diversity" and "equality" is conditioned on our invisibility.\nSome gay journalists are now arguing that the war has been won, that we're basically accepted in American society. I won't agree until a movie that shows two men kissing can play in multiplexes without clearing the auditorium, or two men can kiss each other on campus without a bodyguard of supporters. The fact that OUT stopped doing kiss-ins is one sign that we still have a long way to go.